ADDRESSES 



Delivered at the 



Dedication of Gayley Hall 

LAFAYETTE COLLEGE 



APRIL 5, 1902 



Description of the New Building . Edward Hart. 3 

The Significance of Chemical Laboratories 

Ira Remsen. 6 

The Contributions of Chemistry to Sanitary 

Science . . Thomas Messinger Drown. 12 

MetallurgicalLaboratories . Henry Marion Howe. 22 



E ASTON, PA. 
May, 1902. 



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ADDRESSES 



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Delivered at the 



Dedication of Gayley Hall 

LAFAYETTE COLLEGE 

APRIL 5, 1902 



Description of the New Building . Edward Hart 

The Significance of Chemical Laboratories 

Ira Remsen 

The Contributions of Chemistry to Sanitary 

Science . . Thomas Messinger Drown 

Metallurgical Laboratories . Henry Marion Howe 



EASTON, PA. 
May, 1902. 



•7 



J7Ja'03 If 




DEDICATORY ADDRESSES 

|AYL<EY HALIy, containing the laboratories of 
chemistry and metallurgy, was built and pre- 
sented to Lafayette College by James Gayley, of 
the Class of 1876. Mr. Gayley is now a Trustee 
of the College, and First Vice-President of the 
United States Steel Corporation. 

The exercises were held in the auditorium of Pardee Hall, 
in the presence of a large audience of distinguished men of 
science and letters, educators and business men. President 
Ethelbert Dudley Warfield presided. Prayer was offered by 
Rev. M. J. Eckels, of the Class of 1877. Dr. Warfield then 
introduced Professor Edward Plart, who had been asked to 
give a brief description of the new building. Professor Hart 
spoke as follows: 

Professor Hart's Addrkss. 

My task is to endeavor, on behalf of the Building Committee, to give 
you some idea of the new building. The Building Committee consisted 
of Mr. Gayley and myself. Mr. Gayley preferred that the building be, 
in general appearance, something like those of Columbia College, but, he 
said to me, "you are to live in it and I wish you to make the arrange- 
ment of the inside entirely to suit yourself. ' ' The building operations 
have been in my charge, therefore, and have drawn heavily on my time 
and patience, so that if you find mistakes they are to be charged to me. 
I think some mistakes have been made, but none I hope beyond remedy. 
The laboratory is, first of all, a shop where work is being done and the 
prime considerations are convenience in a building with plenty of light 
and air which can be kept clean. To the chemist, cleanliness is of more 
importance than godliness. So we have tried to build a building which 
could be kept clean. Those of you who may be disposed to criticize the 
absence of some of the elaborate arrangements often seen, must remem- 
ber that college boys are in the effervescent period of their lives and that 
such arrangements would not, therefore, be appropriate. 

The building is of brick, trimmed with Indiana limestone and terra 



cotta. The walls have an air space throughout to keep them dry. The 
floors and roof are supported on steel beams upon which are laid cement 
floors strengthened with expanded metal. These floors are four inches 
thick and are calculated to support 150 pounds per square foot. The 
partitions are also of expanded metal on small I beams covered and filled 
with plaster. They are only two inches thick, but very strong and 
stiff. The ceilings are high to give plenty of air, and the windows large 
to give plenty of light. On either side are three large flues eighteen 
inches in diameter against which the hoods are placed. There are three 
six-inch openings into each of these hoods, one from each flue, giv- 
ing a strong draft and at the same time ventilating the laboratory. With 
a little care we think this will be sufficient. Without care, in a college 
laboratory, nothing is sufficient. When bromine is being boiled, or hy- 
drogen sulphide made on the desk, or a solution of sulphurous acid 
evaporated, nothing but forced draft and wide-open windows will make 
the rooms inhabitable. The ceilings are plastered with cement which 
we hope and believe will not peel off, and the walls with cold water 
paint. This we expect to brush off with wire brushes and renew as often 
as may be necessary. The steel beams have been covered with the best 
asphalt varnish we could find. This is believed to be the best protective 
covering where the metal is exposed, as here, to acid vapors. It can 
be, as you will see, renewed as often as is necessary. The electric wires 
are run through the hallways so as to prevent the insulating covering 
from being eaten off by acids, which gave us much trouble in Jenks Hall. 
It has been impossible to complete all the fittings in the time allowed — 
some of the rooms, such as the assay room, which we hope to fit up equal 
to and very closely resembling the best in Colorado, the metallurgical 
room, in which I am sure some of you would have been much interested, 
and the room for crystallization on the large scale, have nothing but the 
bare walls. I hope those who are interested in these will visit us again 
and help me to make them what they should be and what I mean they 
shall be if life and strength hold out, — the best of their kind in the world. 
We have at last a chance, thanks to Mr. Gay ley's kindness, to show what 
we can do in chemistry at Lafayette College. Such men as Traill Green, 
Charles Mclntire, T. M. Drown, F. P. Dewey, F. C. Blake, F. H. Daniels, 
A. B. Clemence, Joseph Torrey, Stuart Croasdale, A. H. Welles, R. E. 
Divine, R. W. Mahon, K. Schultz, P. W. Shimer and R. K. Meade 
have made I^afayette College well known among chemists and metal- 
lurgists. It will be my task to continue the good work, and endeavor 



to draw here others who can extend the confines of our knowledge 
as they have done and make the new light of science which we are 
lighting to-day, a power for good in the world. I look forward with joy 
to the days I am to spend in quiet work in the new building, and it 
is a pleasure to me to promise increased devotion to chemistry, some- 
times a hard mistress, but one whose service I love. 

I wish to draw your special attention to the Henry W. Oliver Library, 
appropriately housed in a room on the first floor. The fitting up of this 
room has given me a great deal of pleasure. Much more, that here I have had 
the generous assistance of my old-time students, now friends and busi- 
ness associates, Messrs. John T. Baker and George P. Adamson. It is 
not given to many college professors to have such students as they were, 
to share in their success and have their help in work like this. Our 
college trustees have been generous too. They have shown how much 
they appreciated Mr. Oliver's gift by making the collection of chemical 
books belonging to the college (a very respectable one) a part of it. 
With our share of the general library fund I think we can spend about 
$2,50 yearly for new books. This room is so arranged that galleries can 
be added on either side for the storage of books when this becomes 
necessary. 

And now in conclusion I wish to express our thanks to those who have 
shown their interest in Mr. Gayley's gift by coming, some of them long 
distances and at considerable sacrifice, to attend these exercises. I 
wish to thank Dr. Drown, Mr. Gayley's teacher and mine, and Dr. 
Remsen, my teacher in organic chemistry and in other things which 
he did not know he was teaching, and Professor Howe, whose work in 
metallurgy has made him famous all over the world. These gentlemen 
are to speak to us and then I know that you will thank them too. 

Last of all I must thank Mr. Gayley. It is pleasant to us that one of 
our own boys should have given this laboratory. It is more of a pleas- 
ure that it should have been given by a man so well known by his 
achievements as a metallurgist. It is not news to most of you that our 
methods of making iron and steel are being earnestly studied by the 
rest of the world and that Mr. Gayley has had a prominent place in 
the great and laborious work which has had this result. It is pleasant 
to know that he traces even a small part of his success to the things he 
learned here of Dr. Drown, and that he has determined to pass some 
of them on to the younger generation. But the pleasantest thing 



about this gift has been that it was given without parade of any kind, 
and generously. 

On page 6 of our college catalogue I read that " with all its growth La- 
fayette College remains in fact and in purpose a college. Its aim is the 
education of men." We have been fortunate in having had many men 
among us. We have one with us to-day in the place of honor. Hi 
name is James Gayley. 



Following the closing words the students rose and gave the 
college cheer for Mr. Gayley. Dr. Warfield declared that he 
heartily emphasized and accentuated Professor Hart's remarks, 
and then introduced Ira Remsen, LL.D., President of Johns 
Hopkins University, who spoke on **The Significance of 
Chemical Laboratories. ' ' 

The modern laboratory is the result of a process of evolution. As 
nearly as can be made out, the order of events was about this. Men have 
always studied in some way the things round about them. The infant 
does this; the savage does it. Indeed, every animal does it. An im- 
mense amount of information was thus early collected. No doubt the 
facts observed caused a good deal of thinking such as it was ; and the 
discovery was made that thought is a valuable aid to work. Then 
followed a long period in which the best thinkers seem to have held that 
the great problems of the universe are to be solved by mental processes 
alone. The old philosophers spent their time in speculating upon these 
problems and gave to the world many ingenious theories, some of which 
survive to-day in one form or another. The development of the mind 
was carried to such an extent that a school of philosophers dealt with 
subjects entirely beyond the powers of man. One question that was much 
discussed for centuries is of special interest to chemists. I refer to the 
question whether matter is infinitely divisible or not. As this illustrates 
the older methods very well, let us look into it a little more closely. 

It is plain that any piece of matter, say a piece of iron , can be broken 
into smaller pieces. In the process of subdivision we finally reach such 
small particles that it is extremely difi&cult to handle them, yet no one, I 
am sure, can imagine this process of subdivision going on forever in the 
case of any given particle. We are to-day quite willing to acknowledge 
that our minds are incompetent to deal with such problems. We know 



that they are also incompetent to imagine, either that the space of the 
universe is unbounded or that it has boundaries. 

Clearly, such speculations as those just referred to are not well calcu- 
lated to throw light upon the nature of the things around us. No doubt 
the discussions did much to develop the mental powers of man, and thus 
prepared him to take up problems at hand ; but meanwhile the idea 
became prevalent that there are two kinds of work, mental and hand 
work, and that, of these, mental work is of a higher order than hand 
work. This idea has done much to keep the world back. It was this 
idea that stood in the way of the only kind of work that could possi- 
bly develop our knowledge of nature. So long as men in their efforts 
to learn more of the universe simply sat down and thought about it, 
progress was necessarily slow. Many beautiful thoughts were evolved to 
be sure, but in most cases these thoughts were without foundation, or, at 
least, they went far beyond the limits justified by the facts. 

We are suffering to-day, though much less than formerly, from this 
tendency to substitute speculation for solid work. Everybody has, or 
thinks he has, a mind, and thinking is so easy that it is carried to an ex- 
treme. Scarcely a day passes without its theory. The result is that the 
world of ideas is filled with a mass of crude material. To the untrained 
mind one thought is, in general, as good as another. The prime object 
of education is to train the mind so that it shall be able to distinguish 
the sound from the unsound, the true from the false. If it fails in that, 
no matter how much knowledge the student may have, the education 
is a failure. 

My point thus far has been to show that the method followed by our 
forefathers was not the laboratory method, that it was in fact the philo- 
sophical method. What then led to the adoption of the laboratory method? 
That is a broad question. In attempting to answer it, we are first brought 
face to face with a body of men who have long figured in histor}'^, and 
generally in a way not worthy of praise. I refer to the alchemists, the 
seekers after the philosopher's stone. However disreputable many of 
the alchemists may have been, however dark and devious the arts they 
practiced, there is no doubt that they laid the foundations of the scientific 
laboratory. They were workers with things. What matters now that 
they were dreamers too? They taught us that it is possible to learn some 
of the secrets of nature by coming in direct contact with the products 
of nature; by handling them; by subjecting them to new conditions; in 



8 

short, by experimenting with them ; and that is one of the most valua- 
ble lessons the worid has ever learned. 

Whatever may have been the incentive that kept the alchemists at work, 
the main thing is that they did work. They did not discover the philoso. 
pher's stone, or the elixir of life, but they discovered something of far 
greater value to mankind — the right way to study the world we live in; 
and, while they were doing their work, they also discovered a large 
number of substances, the use of which has been of inestimable service 
to chemistry ever since, without which we could make no progress in the 
study of chemical phenomena. I need only mention among the substances 
discovered by them, muriatic, nitric, and sulphuric acids, ammonia, the 
alkalies, innumerable important metallic compounds, alcohol, ether, 
phosphorus. Without these the chemist of to-day would be helpless. 

The next important thought that contributed to the development of 
experimental science was a modification of one of the gliding thoughts 
of the alchemists. It was this, that the object of chemistry is the study 
of disease and of the means of combating it. 

This idea took strong hold, and the workshops of the apothecaries 
became the chemical laboratories. A large number of the leading chem- 
ists of the last century either were apothecaries, or they had first been 
trained as such, and afterward gave up the practice of this profession. 
Among those whose names first come to mind in this connection is 
Scheele, of Sweden. Scheele was probably the most prolific discoverer 
chemistry ever had. All his life was spent in the practice of pharmacy. 
But most of his time he was also engaged in experimenting with chem- 
ical substances with the sole object of finding out as much as possible 
concerning them. He delighted in discovery, and no doubt felt as 
the greatest discoverers have always felt, that their occupation carries 
with it its own reward. 

Observe the change in principle. The alchemist worked for the philos- 
opher's stone; the medical chemist or the pharmacist worked to find a 
new remedy ; but Scheele and other true scientific investigators worked 
for the sake of discovery. 

The discoveries of Scheele were made in his apothecary shop amid sur- 
roundings that would make an undergraduate student of the present day 
smile in pity, perhaps laugh in derision. And yet this was only little more 
than a hundred years ago, for Scheele was bom in 1742 and died in 1786. 
It is an interesting and instructive fact that, while Scheele's work was 
brilliantly successful in the field of pure science, his work as an apothe- 



cary was almost a complete failure, judged by the world's standard. 
He had harder work to make both ends meet than he had to make chem- 
ical discoveries. He lived and died in extreme poverty and in poor 
health. 

It was not an easy thing to study chemistry even as late as the first two 
decades of the last century. The subject was most inadequately provided 
for at the universities. It was not regarded as offering a career for young 
men, and only a few, in exceptional circumstances, attempted to pur- 
sue it. Bach of the older chemists had his own workshop or laboratory, 
and it was necessary to gain admittance to one of these in order to 
learn the methods of chemistry. 

Wohler, who so long made Gottingen a Mecca for American students 
of chemistry, has told in a most interesting way of his experiences. In 
1823, immediately after the completion of his medical studies, he decided 
to devote himself to chemistry. He was advised to go to Stockholm to 
study with Berzelius, who was then the leader of the chemical world. 
Speaking of the laboratory of Berzelius, Wohler says : ' 'I was then the 
only one in the laboratory. It consisted of two ordinary rooms fitted up 
in the simplest possible way. It contained neither furnaces nor hoods ; 
neither water nor gas service. In one room were two ordinary pine 
tables. At one of these Berzelius had his place and at the other was mine. 
There were some cupboards on the walls and in these were the reagents; 
in the middle of one of the rooms was the mercury trough and the glass- 
blowing table. In addition there was a wash-place, consisting of an 
earthenware vessel for holding water. In this there was a stop-cock and 
beneath it was a trough, where Anna, the tyrannical cook, daily washed 
the dirty laboratory vessels. In the other room were the balances and 
a few cupboards with instruments and apparatus. In the adjoining 
kitchen, where Anna preparad our meals, stood a furnace that was rarely 
used, and the sand-bath that was always kept hot." This is the descrip- 
tion of the laboratory of one, who in his time was doing more to ad- 
vance chemistry than any one else. 

We have now reached a critical period in the history of laboratories. 
At about the same time that Wohler started for Stockholm, Liebig, who 
had tried to study chemistry in the apothecary shop and failed, who had 
then tried the universities of his native country, Germany, and failed 
here also to get what he wanted, — Liebig started for Paris. After some 
disappointments, he finally secured permission to work in the private 
laboratory of Gay-Lussac, one of the shining lights in France, and indeed 



lO 

a great man judged by any standard. Here Liebig must have made rapid 
progress, for in a short time he was appointed professor of chemistry in 
the University of Giessen, he being at the time just twenty-two years of 
age. This was in 1824, the year after Wohler had gone to Stockholm. 
There was, of course, no laboratory at Giessen, and this was the point to 
which the enthusiastic young chemist first turned his attention. With 
diflSculty he convinced the authorities that a laboratory is the first con- 
dition of success in the teaching of chemistry. A laboratory was pro- 
vided, I wish I could show you a picture of it. It was a poor affair. In 
fact, it was an old barn refitted. It had no floor, and apparently the 
roof was imperfect. Everything that we now look for in a laboratory 
was lacking except — a most important exception — the enthusiastic leader. 

This was the first chemical laboratory provided for students ; and no 
other laboratory has since exerted anything like its influence, not only 
in chemistry, but upon the development of natural science in general. 
One of his most brilliant students, the late Professor Hofmann, speaks 
thus of this subject: " It was at the small University of Giessen that Lie- 
big organized the first educational laboratory, properly so called, that 
was ever founded. The foundation of this school forms an epoch in the 
history of chemical science. It was here that experimental instruction, 
such as now prevails in our laboratories, received its earliest form and 
fashion; and, if at the present moment we are proud of the magnificent 
temples raised to chemical science in all our schools and universities, let 
it never be forgotten that they all owe their origin to the prototype set 
up by Liebig. The new school called around the master from all na- 
tions, a large number of pupils, the elite of the then rising generation 
of chemists, many of whom are now in their turn distinguished masters 
of the science, having worthily continued in the path of discovery opened 
for them in their youth, by Liebig." 

Now let us turn for a few minutes to the second division of my theme 
and try to find some answer to the question : What part have laboratories 
played, and what part are they playing, in the development of mankind ? 
This is too deep a question to be treated lightly, and I cannot hope to deal 
with it adequately in the short time remaining. Yet I cannot pass it 
over without some comment. 

In the first place, then, it is obvious to every one who knows anything 
at all about the subject that the scientific laboratories have added, and 
are adding, enormously to our knowledge of the world we live in. 
Imagine for a moment what would happen if the work in scientific labora- 



II 

tones should stop. The alternative would be simply talking and writing 
about what has been done. This could go on, perhaps forever, but it 
would some time cease to be profitable, and we should eventually return 
to the condition of things that existed in the time of the old philoso- 
phers, and we should starve intellectually, just as surely as we should 
starve physically if the growth of crops should cease. 

But the acquisition of knowledge is not the highest aim of man. Un- 
less this knowledge contributes in some way to his uplifting, it is a, 
luxury — of value to be sure, but not a matter of life and death. This 
brings us directly to the question : What does scientific discovery, or a 
knowledge of the material universe, accomplish for the elevation of man? 
I am well aware that, when this question is asked, the answer generally 
includes, first a reference to the many useful practical applications of the 
results of scientific discovery such as the steam-engine, the telegraph, 
electric lights, etc., etc., and to the improvements m the sanitary condi- 
tions, and the advances in medicine. These are all, no doubt, of great 
value, and are directly connected with scientific research. Scientific 
men welcome every application of the results of their work, and they know 
that these results are far-reaching and of great value, but with these ap- 
plications they are not generally directly concerned. It is the province 
of science to investigate, to discover, to know, to furnish the material or 
the knowledge that is to be applied, but it is not its province to apply. 
The invention of the steam-engine was not a scientific achievement any 
more than was the invention of the telegraph. These, I repeat, are 
applications of the results of the discovery of certain facts and princi- 
ples by scientific investigators. To take a recent illustration of this 
distinction, wireless telegraphy is the practical application of a scientific 
discovery made a number of years ago by Herz. What Marconi has done 
is to show that the electric waves discovered by Herz can be utilized for 
the purpose of transmitting signals for some distance without wires. It 
is no discredit to Marconi to say that he could not have done his work 
if Herz had not shown the existence of the electrical waves, but it is of 
importance to recognize the fact. 

This takes me back for a moment to a remark I made some time ago 
to the effect that Scheele and other true investigators worked for the 
sake of discovery. I add now that it is the growth of the scientific spirit, 
in this sense, that is responsible for the great results that have come 
from the scientific work carried on during the last century. It is only 
when the investigator is free to work without being asked, or asking 



12 

himself, the question : Of what use is this particular piece of work likely 
to be? — that he is likely to reach the best results. Nearly all, perhaps all, 
discoveries that have found valuable practical applications have ap- 
peared at first to have no practical value, and, if, in each case, the in- 
vestigator had stopped his work because he could see no use for his dis- 
covery, only a very small part of the v/ork that has been done would ever 
have been completed. So that, if we regard scientific investigation of value 
only in so far as its results are capable of practical application, we should 
still have to encourage even that which appears most abstruse and 
farthest removed from connection with our daily lives. 



'' The Contributions of Chemistry to Sanitary Science " was 
the theme of the next address, delivered by Dr. Thomas Mes- 
singer Drown, President of Lehigh University. 

This happy day for Lafa3'^ette College, when its new hall of science 
is dedicated to the search for truth and. to its dissemination, is also one 
to me of distinct personal gratification. During the years that I had 
charge of the chemical department here there were many students 
whose promise of a brilliant and useful life has since been abundantly 
realized. Among them was the distinguished captain of industry whom 
we honor and congratulate to-day for his beautiful and pious tribute of 
love and loyalty to his Alma Mater. And it is also a source of satisfac- 
tion for me to contemplate the fact that of this department, now so 
highly esteemed among men of science and among educators, and des- 
tined to become still more favorably known by reason of its increased 
facilities, its head and one member of its staff were also my students, 
whose first steps in the science of chemistry it was my privilege to guide. 
The teacher, I well know, is only too apt to overrate the value of his 
teaching and of his influence, yet I think his pride in the success and 
usefulness of his pupils may be generously pardoned. 

To cure disease is a noble application of human knowledge and sym- 
pathy, but to prevent disease is a still higher service to mankind. The 
scientific study of morbid conditions involves necessarily the investiga- 
tion of their causes, and these causes, once determined, we are able in- 
telligently to try to remove them. Thus curative medicine has always 
preceded preventative medicine, and sanitary science and hygiene are 
the ripe fruits of the investigations of the myriad forms of disease to 
which mankind is subject. 



13 

Diseased conditions of the body are of two kinds. First, the func- 
tional and organic derangements due to abnormal living. When the or- 
gans and vital processes are subjected to strains which they are not able 
or not adapted to bear, the result is that some part or some process 
breaks down. The enjoyment in an individual of permanent good health 
based on correct habits of living — ^habits adapted to the life and the 
environment — it may be said, in passing, seems sufficiently exceptional 
to call for comment and congratulation. But there are other diseases 
against which healthy habits may afford no protection ; for they invade 
our bodies from without through the air we breathe, the food we eat 
and the articles we handle. These zymotic or germ diseases, a very few 
years ago thought to be " mysterious dispensations of Providence," are 
now revealing a proximate cause to patient, scientific investigators. 

It is the object of this brief paper to chronicle some of the things that 
chemistry has done to promote healthy living by throwing light on 
the nature of normal nutrition in the human system, by pointing out 
sources of danger, and by preventing the spread of germ diseases. 

At the outset it may perhaps be claimed that the new science of bac- 
teriology has taken from chemistry the laurels she once wore, since many 
of the processes which we were once accustomed to regard as entirely 
chemical in origin are now known to require life action. The rusting of 
iron is still admitted to be a purely chemical action, but the oxidation 
or decay of organic matter we have recently learned cannot go on without 
the presence of bacteria and the force they supply. In the decay of 
organic matter the changes are recognized, it is true, only by chemical 
means, yet the breaking down of organic matter, it is now fully recog- 
nized, requires life action as well as building up. 

The discovery of the bacteria and the revelation of their functions in 
nature, has been the crowning glory of scientific research in the century 
just past, and the successful fighting of a specific disease with the bacte- 
rium which caused it is one of the brilliant and beneficent results of this 
research. 

But though chemistry may have to take the second place in the treat- 
ment of germ diseases, it still holds the first place in their prevention. 
Among the myriad forms of bacterial life which break down organic 
matter and reduce it ultimately to mineral matter that the cycle of nature 
may go on in its ceaseless round, there are a few whose action or products 
are distinctly harmful to man, and to destroy these foes of mankind or 
make them inoperative is the province of preventative medicine. It is a 



14 

battle royal between the chemical poison, and the poison of the bacteria- 
Notwithstanding the marvelous rapidity of bacterial growth with a cor- 
respondingly profuse elaboration of their distinctive products, the or- 
ganisms themselves are very susceptible to many chemical agents, some 
of which, even in infinitesimally dilute solutions, have the power to 
destroy bacterial life. It is on these chemical germicides that the whole 
scheme of disinfection is based, whereby we seek to prevent the trans- 
mission of specific diseases by killing the germs which produce them. 

It would not be possible within the limit of time allotted to this 
paper, to enumerate all the chemical substances which have had germi- 
cidal powers claimed for them or even to enumerate those which have been 
tested by competent experimenters. Almost daily new ones are added to 
the list, showing how very wide a range of chemical compounds exert 
an inhibitory influence on bacterial life. 

It must be said in this connection that the statements of investigators in 
this field are often much at variance with regard to the efl5ciency of 
certain germicides. This may indicate that certain bacteria are more 
resistant to chemical agents than others, and that an efficient germi- 
cide in one case may be an imperfect one in another. Further, some 
bacteria form spores, which, like the seeds of plants, are much more 
resistant than the cells, and many germicides which destroy the cell 
structure in a few minutes have no effect whatever on the spores. A 
thoroughly efl5cient and universal germicide is one, therefore, which can 
be relied on to destroy the total vitality of the germ, the spores, as well 
as the organism itself. 

Again, it is absolutely necessary in disinfection that the germicide 
should be in intimate contact with the material to be disinfected. To 
put a saucer of chloride of lime, or chloride of zinc, on the floor of a sick 
room and expect the germs on the walls and ceilings and curtains to 
be influenced by these chemicals, is to liken their operation to a charm. 
There are, it is true, gaseous germicides, and their eflSciency depends 
on the thoroughness with which the gases are made to penetrate into all 
the nooks and corners of a room and to permeate all tissues and fabrics. 
Efficient disinfection depends on intelligence and thoroughness ; half- 
way measures are valueless. 

We use the words disinfectants and germicides interchangeably ; to dis- 
infect is to destroy the cause of infection, namely the germs. Confusion 
often results from the improper use of the word antiseptics in the same 
sense. An antiseptic is a substance which renders organic matter unfa- 



15 

vorable ground for bacterial growth, but it does not necessarily kill the 
bacteria. In this category are salt, sugar, vinegar and alcohol and 
other food preservatives. It is obvious that all germicides are antisep- 
tics, but there are many antiseptics that have no germicidal properties 
whatever. In practice, many of the feeble germicides, or even the 
powerful germicides in very dilute solution, are used as antiseptics in the 
dressing of wounds and the preserving of food. 

I shall attempt only a brief mention of the substances in general use as 
germicides. Some of them are inorganic in their origin, some organic, 
some can be used in the gaseous form in fumigation and others only in 
solution or admixture with water or other liquid. Thorough contact, 
as has already been said, is, in any case, the essential condition of success 
in disinfection. 

Corrosive sublimate stands easily first among the inorganic germicides 
destroying the most resistant bacteria in the dilution of i to looo or even i 
to 5000 of the salt in water, and in the dilution of i to 500 it will destroy 
spores. 

Copper, zinc and other metallic salts in solution have also germicidal 
properties, but they must be used in rather concentrated solutions to be 
effective. 

Chloride of lime, or bleaching-powder, has long been known as a disin- 
fectant and is most efiicacious if intelligently used. A i per cent, solu- 
tion of the powder which still retains 25 per cent, to 30 per cent, of avail- 
able chlorine destroys cholera and typhoid germs in ten minutes if 
brought in actual contact with them. It is the calcium hypochlorite in the 
bleaching-powder which is the efficient agent of disinfection, and the solu- 
tion of the corresponding sodium compound, sold under the name of 
Labarraque's fluid, is also a much-used and convenient form of employ- 
ing a hypochlorite. 

The use of quicklime as a disinfectant, in the form of milk of lime, 
dates from a remote past, and has been justified by recent investigation ; 
but it must be reasonably concentrated. We all associate cleanliness with 
the odor of fresh whitewash which effectually destroys the musty odor of 
dark, damp rooms. 

Permanganate of potash, contrary to the general notion, has very 
feeble germicidal properties, though it is one of the best deodorants. 
Of the latter — the deodorants — there are many efficient substances, such 
as charcoal and dry earth, but no inference of any specific action on 
bacteria can be made from this property of removing odor. Still less can 



i6 

this action be inferred from strong smelling substances which mask the 
objectionable odor. An old definition of a disinfectant was, as you will 
remember, a substance which smelt so bad that the windows had to be 
opened to let in the fresh air, and the latter it was which purified the room. 

The mineral acids are also good disinfectants as are also the caustic 
alkalies, but they are not usually as safe to handle, and to apply, as the 
dilute solutions of corrosive sublimate or chloride of lime. 

Of the inorganic gaseous germicides chlorine and bromine are efficient, 
but highly objectionable for general use, owing to their corrosive nature. 
Burning sulphur comes down to us from the ancients, and still holds a 
place among the approved gaseous disinfectants. Ozone is theoretically 
an ideal substance for fumigation and it has actually been used as a gas- 
eous disinfectant. But we know as yet too little of its action and of 
the conditions of its favorable application to assert with positiveness any- 
thing definite of its value. 

Passing to the organic realm, we find many germicides of the highest 
value and impr)rtance. Prominent among these are the various com- 
pounds derived from the tar which results from the destructive distillation 
of coal and wood. Tar has an ancient reputation for its healing prop- 
erties and you will recall that Bishop Berkely as long ago as the middle 
of the i8th Century sang the praises of tar water as a relief or cure for all 
human ills. Two books are the result of his experience with this rem- 
edy : " Siris, a Chain of Philosophical Reflections and Inquiries Con- 
cerning the Virtues of Tar Water," and "Further Thoughts on Tar 
Water." 

Among the countless derivatives of the distillation of tar there are very 
many which possess strongly marked germicidal properties. Phenol, or 
carbolic acid, is the best known and most widely used, but the cresols, 
closely related compounds, are much more ei65cacious. None of them 
destroy the spores promptly, but the cresols are more satisfactory in 
this regard than phenol. Naphthol may also be included in this group, 
although probably less potent than the others. 

The host of proprietary and commercial disinfectants have generally 
metallic chlorides or coal-tar products as their basis, often in a crude and 
inexpensive form ; but unless their exact composition is known, it would 
scarcely be safe to rely on the manufacturers' statements as to general 
usefulness. 

But the most valuable and remarkable of all the germicides of or- 
ganic origin has an entirely different source from this benzene group. 



17 

Formic aldehyde is now universally recognized as the most generally 
useful and powerful of all the germicides. It has the advantage that it 
can be used both in solution, and as a gas, and that though somewhat 
irritating to the mucous membranes, it is not poisonous and does not 
injure fabrics or clothes. In a dilution of i to 50,000 parts of water it 
has decided antiseptic action, in a dilution of i to 5,000 it kills all germs, 
and in a somewhat higher concentration it destroys completely the vital- 
ity of the spore-forming bacteria. 

Of the many hundreds, perhaps thousands, of chemical compounds 
whose germicidal properties have been investigated by bacteriologists, I 
have mentioned only those most generally used. Provided with formic 
aldehyde, corrosive sublimate, chloride of lime, caustic lime and car- 
bolic acid or the cresols we are well equipped to wage successful warfare 
on the bacteria which are responsible for so much human misery and 
death. 

I must not fail to mention, before leaving the subject of disinfection, 
that if the conditions favorable for the propagation of bacteria are avoided, 
the use of chemical germicides may often be unnecessary. Cleanliness 
is the great agent inimical to bacteria, for their natural habitat is in dark- 
ness and dirt, and their unrelenting enemies, sunlight and soap. 

I pass now to the antiseptics, substances which have the property of 
preventing the growth of bacteria although they may not have the power 
to kill them. In olden days certain substances were spoken of as having 
healing properties; to-day we call these substances antiseptics. It is 
antisepsis, in connection with anesthesia, which has robbed surgery of 
its terrors and made possible operations on the human body which 
would formerly have been fatal. 

But it is of the use of antiseptics in the preservation of food that I wish 
particularly to speak. The older preservatives, salt, saltpeter, and the 
gaseous products of the imperfect combustion of wood, giving us salted 
and smoked fish and meat, have come down from remote ages ; they are 
still efficient and satisfactor}--. The recent investigations in bacteriol- 
ogy, however, have shown that there are other substances which act as 
preservatives and which are easily applied and very efficacious in very 
small quantities. These modern antiseptics are mainly boric, salicylic 
and benzoic acids and their alkaline salts. And some of the well-known 
germicides are also used in very dilute solutions as food preservatives, 
notably formic aldehyde and sulphurous acid and the sulphites. 
There are those who would question whether in offering these sub- 



i8 

stances to preserve food, chemistry has conferred a benefit on mankind 
or has inflicted an injury. The untrained and untutored sanitarian — 
and there are, alas, too many of this kind — is usually pessimistic and 
dogmatic. He rejoices gloomily over the number and variety of dangers 
to which mankind is exposed in his food and drink, and apparently wel- 
comes unwillingly the means proposed to obviate them. He argues, 
with regard to antiseptics, that a substance which is injurious to the 
human system in large quantity must needs be proportionately injurious 
in small quantity and further, that as antiseptics preserve food from decay 
they must necessarily retard or prevent the digestion of food in the 
stomach. And he even goes so far as to discard argument altogether and 
cry that the food is "embalmed," as if this term would not equally 
apply to all preserved food. 

Suffice it to say in this connection that it is quite within the province 
of the physiological chemist to determine whether any of these modern 
preservatives are injurious to health, either by interfering with digestion 
or by a process of slow poisoning. Until such determinations are satis- 
factorily made, caution may well be observed without the wholesale 
denunciation of these antiseptics as poisons and adulterants. Much has 
indeed already been done in this direction, and the danger to health 
from some of these antiseptics has been found to be greatly exaggerated 
or unfounded, when they are used rationally and intelligently. 

But the public who buy preserved foods and are at a loss to know what 
to believe, have a right to know what they are buying. Prejudices are 
often as dear to us as principles and they are entitled to a certain measure 
of consideration. It is very questionable in my mind whether in the 
present state of our knowledge with regard to preservatives it would be 
right, absolutely, to prohibit bylaw the use of the above-mentioned chem- 
icals, but there cannot be any doubt of the need of legislation to com- 
pel manufacturers to print distinctly on every package of preserved food 
a complete list of all the substances entering into its composition, to- 
gether with the statement of the amount of any preservative which may 
have been used. The preservation of food for human consumption is a 
matter of the highest economic and sanitary importance, and any new 
process of which this preservation is more thoroughly and cheaply 
effected is a gain to the community, provided it is accomplished without 
injury to the character and digestibility of the food or without harmful 
effects on the system. 

Before leaving this subject it may be fairly said that there is an objec- 



19 

tion to the use of preservatives in some cases which is quite indepen- 
dent of their possible injurious effects, namely, that their use may lead 
to a lack of cleanliness. This is particularly the case with milk, which 
can readily be delivered to the consumer in cities with no other preserv- 
ative than cold, and the temptation to neglect the proper precautions 
for its collection and preservation, when a few drops of formic aldehyde 
solution will overcome this neglect, is one which had better not be put 
in the average milkman's way. 

In his analysis of foods and water the chemist has long been consid- 
ered a safeguard against dangerous impurities, and his authority in this 
sphere of sanitary science has been undisputed. We may well give him 
full credit for the accuracy of his determinations, but their bearing on 
healthy living is not always apparent. Food analyses are mainly directed 
against adulteration, and while adulteration is generally fraudulent in in- 
tent it may not be injurious. In the substitution of corn flour or of 
glucose for cane-sugar it is the consumer's pocket that suffers, not 
necessarily his nutrition. In the present general outcry against food adul- 
teration it must be kept in mind that in the great food staples, such 
as meat and grains, harmful additions or substitutions are very rare. 
The great field for fraud in food products is in spices, jellies, syrups, 
and the like. I am not trying to minimize the importance of the chem- 
ist's work in this regard ; I am here rather to recount his achievements, 
among which it may be placed to his credit that he stands as a bulwark 
against the commercial greed which tampers with the public's food. 

In the province of water examination the chemist's verdict on the 
quality of a water was once considered final, but recent researches in 
this department of chemistry and sanitation have shown that many of his 
decisions have condemned good waters and recommended bad ones, 
simply because the knowledge of the day was inadequate for such deci- 
sions. Here again, it was the ignorance of the existence and functions of 
bacteria, which led the chemist to think that it was the organic matter 
in water — as harmless often as the vegetables we eat — ^which was the 
cause of disease. The old standards of purity of water, which date from 
this period, have now been entirely superceded by the application of prin- 
ciples based on engineering, bacteriological and chemical facts. 

The complete sanitary analysis of a water includes a large number of 
determinations which have little or no significance in themselves, but 
which must be interpreted by their relation to one another, and by a 
knowledge of the water-shed from which the water is obtained. That 



20 

this knowledge of the origin of the water is often concealed from the 
chemist, in order that his opinion shall be unbiased, shows how com- 
pletely the character and the purpose of a water analysis may be misun- 
derstood. An analysis made under these conditions is usually worthless. 
Let me take but one illustration to show the necessity of knowing where 
the water comes from when it is analyzed to determine its fitness for 
drinking. A characteristic ingredient of waters which have received 
sewage, or the wastes of human life, is common salt — or chlorine as it is 
usually expressed in the analysis. But all natural, unpolluted waters con- 
tain some chlorine, and those near the sea a very large amount. The 
determination of chlorine in a sample of water, therefore, has no sig- 
nificance unless the *' normal " chlorine of the region is known, for it is 
only the excess of chlorine over the normal that it is important to know. 
This normal chlorine has been determined with great thoroughness for 
the entire State of Massachusetts, under the direction of its State Board 
of Health, and also for the State of Connecticut. And it is clearly the 
duty of the boards of health of all states to make this determination for 
all sections of the state as a basis for the investigations of its natural 
waters. 

It is true that chemistry can never reveal the real cause of danger in 
a sewage-polluted water, which is always the disease germ present in the 
sewage, but it can detect the presence of sewage more easily and more 
quickly than the bacteriologist can detect the presence of the typhoid 
or cholera germ. But, after all, it is the chemist working hand in hand 
with the engineer and the biologist which brings out all the facts we 
are seeking, and it is profitless to try to assign to any of these workers 
the credit which is properly due him. The selfish spirit which occupies 
itself mainly in claiming credit for discoveries is unfortunately, not un- 
known in the scientific world — the spirit which would make the eye say 
to the hand I have no need of thee and again the head to the feet I have 
no need of you ; for if one member be honored all the members rejoice 
with it. 

There remains to be mentioned another important contribution which 
chemistry is making to our knowledge of healthy living, namely, the 
determination of food values. We now know the r61e which the differ- 
ent elements play in the human economy in the form in which they ex- 
ist in foods. The physiological chemist distinguishes between the nitro- 
gen and carbon which he finds in meats and grains, and which are 
promptly assimilated, and the carbon and nitrogen in urea which repre- 



21 

gents the waste of the body. The literature on dietaries — the result of 
investigations of a great variety of foods, to learn their adaptability to 
persons of different ages, sex and occupations — is now very extensive and 
of the highest value from a hygienic standpoint. Good health is largely 
a matter of the proper selection of food, and of its preparation. The 
chemist tells us, for instance that, as regards available nitrogen, lean beei 
and dried peas are of equal value, and that to get the same amount of 
nitrogen as in beef and peas we must consume of oatmeal or eggs one 
and a half times as much, and of potatoes seventeen times as much, 
while of skim-milk cheese one-half as much will suffice. 

The experiments which have been made in Germany and by Professor 
Atwater and others in this countrj^ correlating food with heat and energy 
are of the greatest scientific and practical interest. The knowledge thus 
gained has been widely disseminated in the community. Food advertise- 
ments reflect the popular interest in the subject, and the discussion of 
starch, fatty and nitrogenous foods has become our table talk. 

And yet it must be confessed that though we strive to feed our domes- 
tic animals, which we use for power and for food, on strictly scientific 
principles, there is a reaction against applying these principles to our own 
dietaries, if our tastes and prejudices are interfered with. Humanity has, 
it seems, not yet advanced far enough in regarding the body simply as 
the abode of the spirit to consent to replace an appetizing meal by a menu 
which merely provides for replacing the waste of the body in carbon, ni- 
trogen and lime. And yet it is not impossible to combine the two. Scien- 
tific feeding demands that the food shall be attractive in appearance 
and taste ; it is only against food unfit in quality and quantity that it 
protests. 

Chemistry also points the way to the use of cheaper foods of high nutri- 
tive value. But here again the average man rebels, estimating the value 
of food by its cost. Conservatism, habit and prejudice are hard to over- 
come in any sphere of life, but in none is the difficulty so great as in that 
which relates to food, and the physiological chemist will, I fear, have to 
wait still for many generations before he sees the fruit of his labor to 
show a more excellent way in the science of nutrition. 

In recounting the achievements of the past, there is always a tempta- 
tion, which it is well to resist, to indulge in prophecies for the future. 
And yet it is but natural that we should project into the future the 
curve which represents the contributions which the chemist has already 
made in sanitary science. And in so doing we have a confirmation of 



22 

onr faith in the evolution of the human race — physically, intellec- 
tually, and spiritually — towards a perfect manhood. This faith receives 
support, too, in our daily observation that the laws of nature in so many 
different directions are being revealed to the patient and devout men of 
science, seeking to discover the hidden mysteries of the universe. 

May the hall we dedicate to-day be richly endowed with this spirit of 
research, and contribute abundantly to the overthrow of darkness and 
ignorance, and the dissemination of light and truth. 



Following Dr. Drown, Dr. Warfield introduced Prof. Henry 
Marion Howe, of Columbia University, who spoke on " Metal- 
lurgical I^aboratories. " 

To an old friend and admirer of the great captain, whose munificence 
we celebrate to-day, it is a most rare pleasure to have this privilege of 
adding a word of enthusiastic praise. Let us congratulate Lafayette on 
this princely gift, and still more on the princely heart that prompted 
the princely gift. It is a pleasure to watch the growth and success of one 
whom we esteem ; a very great pleasure to see the responsibility of that 
wealth, which so often intoxicates where it should sober, so soberly 
and so wisely borne. 

The metallurgical laboratory as an instrument for teaching metallurgy 
is so new a thing, so few of these laboratories have been in long use, and 
their methods, aims and merits have been so little discussed that not only 
the thoughtful part of the public, not only educators in general, but even 
a very large fraction of our metallurgical educators themselves, have 
but hazy notions about them. Indeed, there are many whose opinions 
cannot be ignored, many eminent metallurgical educators, who still doubt, 
or even deny the value of the metallurgical laboratory. Under these 
conditions it seems well that those of us who are confident that these 
laboratories are invaluable instruments, should seize occasions like this to 
give the reasons for the faith that is in them, to the end that, if we are 
right, our allies, our sister schools here and abroad, may arm themselves 
with this potent weapon ; and that, if we are wrong, we may discover 
our error through thus uncovering our reasons. 

The objections urged against metallurgical laboratory instructions, so 
far as I understand them, are two: 

First, metallurgy, like every other profession, has its art, and also its 
science, that is to say, the systematic arrangement of the principles on 



23 

which it is based. It is objected that professional education should be 
rather in the science than in the art, rather in the underlying and un- 
changing principles upon which the art reposes, than in the technique of 
the art itself. Principles, it is urged, are to be explained in words and 
thoughts, rather than in laboratory manipulations ; they are to be im- 
parted, then, by thought, by reasoning, by lectures and text-books, 
rather than by doing things with the fingers. The laboratory, it is urged, 
is no place to teach principles. 

Second, the actual conditions of metallurgical practice on a commer- 
cial scale, that is to say, the conditions of the art as it will have to be 
practised, cannot be reproduced in any laboratory. 

Let us examine these two objections. 

The contention that education should be in principles rather than in the 
technique of practice, in the science rather than in the art, no educator 
worthy of the name can question. But this granted, the question remains 
how best to teach principles. To teach them effectively seems almost 
necessarily to require some conception of the things to which they re- 
late; certainly, such conceptions must very greatly facilitate teaching. If 
the subject is of such a nature that sufficient conceptions concerning it 
have been formed during the student's prior life, then laboratory prac- 
tice is less important, or even superfluous; if not, if such conceptions are 
lacking or defective, then laboratory practice may be a most ready way 
of supplying or strengthening them . 

Of the conditions attending metallurgy the student certainly has ac- 
quired no sufficient conceptions during his prior experience : his want 
here is more serious than in case of chemistry and physics, and because 
it is more serious, because these conceptions while hard to supply ver- 
bally, are readily supplied by laboratory practice, the metallurgical lab- 
oratory seems to me of the greatest value as a preparation to the study 
of the principles of this art. 

Let lis test this reasoning, this assertion that conceptions if not a pre- 
requisite, are at least an invaluable aid to the study of principles, of gen- 
eral laws. Surely to grasp the principles of legislation there should be a 
conception of human nature ; to understand the laws of music and paint- 
ing there must be a conception of sound and color. Is not the same 
true then, of chemistry and metallurgy, that in order to understand their 
laws the student should have a conception of the conditions and of the 
kinds of phenomena with which those laws deal ? 

The objection which at once arises is that, in case of mathematics, no 



24 

laboratory work is needed; that in case even of music and painting, exer- 
cise in the art itself is certainly not necessary to enjoyment of its prod- 
ucts and probably not necessary to a clear comprehension of its princi- 
ples. Why then in chemistry and metallurgy ? The answer is, that the 
conceptions underlying mathematics, music and painting have already 
been acquired spontaneously, have become part of our very nature ; and 
that in case congenital blindness or deafness has forcibly prevented the 
acquisition of these conceptions of color or sound, it has thereby made 
the study of the principles of painting or of music impossible. 

Let us look at this a little more closely. 

That every youth has acquired spontaneously and inevitably the con- 
ceptions underlying mathematics, the conceptions of number, distance, 
direction, and force seems clear. 

The child deprived of every sense save touch, begins with its first breath 
to familiarize itself with these conceptions. The resistance offered by 
fixed objects, the mobility of movable ones, the resistance which friction 
and inertia oppose to his moving them, the fact that he cannot move the 
bedpost, that he can move his hand with ease, and his heaviest toy 
with difficulty, from the first give him the conception of force. The 
conception of two hands as distinguished from one is the conception of 
number, forced on him by every scene. Every glance of the eye, or 
if he is blind, every reaching out for toy or foot, gives the conceptions 
of distance and direction. These conceptions then are inevitable, they 
cannot be shut out by defects of the sense; hence the study of mathematics 
does not call for any special preparation comparable with the laboratory 
preparations for the study of chemistry and metallurgy. 

So is it with music and painting to the child with all his senses. 

The sighted youth comes to the study of painting with an eye trained 
from first infancy through sixteen hours of every day of his seventeen 
years in color perceptions, in the glories of the sunset, in the marvelous 
harmonies of the landscape, in the play of human expression, in the 
effects of shadow and perspective. He comes with conceptions so famil- 
iar and complete, so essential a part of his very being, that henceforth 
he cannot think shape without interjecting his conceptions of shade and 
color ; he cannot conceive any object without conceiving it as colored 
or shaded. 

To the study of the laws of music the youth with normal ear, the so- 
called ear for music, comes with the experience of seventeen years, those 
wax-like, plastic years, of the sensuous pleasure due to certain sounds 



25 

and sequences of sound and the annoyance which others cause, not 
only to himself, but to those about him. The mother's lullaby begins 
his acquaintance with pleasurable sound; his own shrieks, the clanging 
bell, the squeaking slate pencil early impress on him the disagreeable in 
sound. So complete and familiar are his sound conceptions that no 
special training in them is imperatively needed to enable him to begin 
the study of the science of music. 

But let congenital blindness or deafness forcibly prevent him from ac- 
quiring these conceptions, and it thereby as forcibly and as absolutely 
unfits him for the study of the science of color or music. How can the 
congenitally blind, to whom red is as the blare of the trumpet, compre- 
hend a discourse on chiaroscuro ? Or with what profit can you explain 
to them the proper tint of shadows while all conception of both tint and 
shadow is not simply vague, imperfect rudimentary, but absent? Or 
how can the congenitally deaf understand the very terms harmony, dis- 
cord, major and minor? Before they can conceive what minor means, 
must they not have some conception of sound ? 

Even after the missing sense has been given to one thus congenitally 
defective, to acquire the missing conceptions is a work of time. Open 
blind eyes at seventeen and all is seen in confusion ; time and acquaint- 
ance must make conceptions clear and familiar, conceptions and interpre- 
tations of shade and perspective, before the science of painting becomes 
comprehensible. Unstop deaf ears at seventeen and not only is a sym- 
phony of Beethoven absolutely meaningless, but all sound fails to be in- 
terpreted. Only after time has supplied the familiarity with sound con- 
ceptions which childhood should have given, only then can the study of 
the principles of music be begun. 

These cases thus support the contention that familiarity with concep- 
tions and conditions, if not absolutely necessary to the study of princi- 
ples, is at least an invaluable, an incalculable aid. 

The student beginning the study of metallurgy has something in com- 
mon with one who should begin the study of the science of music im- 
mediately after the instantaneous cure of congenital deafness. As it is 
hard for us to grasp our own infantile diflSculties in interpreting the 
sensations on our retinas, so one who begins to teach metallurgy late 
enough in life to have lost sight of the mental condition of his student 
days, is at first puzzled by the density of his pupils' ignorance. They 
lack the very beginning of those every-day conceptions so familiar to the 



26 

teacher himself. To a man from the moon the conception that water 
runs down rather than up hill would be novel. 

Without conceptions of metallurgical conditions and surroundings, your 
reasoning about metallurgical processes may wring an acquiescence from 
the student's intellect, but all remains unreal, unheld by the memory, 
unimpressed, like a pale algebraic demonstration. 

Now, I take it, that the great object of laboratory instruction is to sup- 
ply lacking conceptions. Though the youth has seen chemical actions 
going on around him, his attention has not been sufl5ciently concen- 
trated on their essential features. The chemical laboratory reinforces his 
deficient observation, clarifies his hazy conceptions of gasification, subli- 
mation, precipitation, solution, fusion, liquefaction, solidification , freezing 
diffusion, the exact balancing of reaction, substitution, the indestructi- 
bility of matter. Beyond this it impresses on his memory the chief char- 
acteristics of the more important chemical substances by vivid picture 
and by personal acquaintance, instead of by mere description from the 
lips or pen of teacher. They become to him as his playmates in the 
flesh, instead of as the heroes of his story books. It is no just re- 
proach to call this kindergarten work ; calling names is poor argument.. 
It does to the youth what the kindergarten does to the little child, direc- 
ting observation into fruitful fields. 

Why, now, have I said that laboratory instruction is even more pressing 
in case of metallurgy than in that of chemistry or of physics ? Because 
the conditions, especially the high temperature conditions, which sur- 
round metallurgy are stronger, newer, less foreshadowed by childhood's 
prior experience, less readily evolved from our consciousness, less easily 
pictured by the words of lecture or text-book than those which attend 
chemistry and physics as these are chiefly taught, the chemistry and 
physics of the normal or every-day temperature, that little range be- 
tween the freezing- and boiling-points of water. The conditions and phe- 
nomena even of common-temperature chemistry and physics indeed, 
are relatively unfamiliar to the beginner. This, however, is not so much 
because they and their likes have not been seen, as because attention 
has not been concentrated upon them. The pictures are already in the 
memory and respond readily to developing and fixing by skilful lan- 
guage. The daily ablutions teach the integration of soap and certain 
dirt and the insolubility of other dirt ; sugar and salt at the breakfast 
table teach solution ; the settling of fine mud in the brooklets and pools 
teaches decantation; the clearness of the spring exemplifies filtration; 



27 

the tea kettle and soda water teach ebullition; the drying roofs show 
evaporation; the sweating of the ice-pitcher illustrates the principle of 
the dewpoint ; the sponge teaches surface-tension. All these and a hun- 
dred like images already exist in the memory and have but to be recalled 
to become vivid, but to be interpreted to serve as types of our chemical 
and physical phenomena. 

But of metallurgical conditions the youth's past has given little fore- 
taste. Especially is this true of the solvent fluxing action of that high 
temperature at which the rocks and most of the metals are as water; many 
other metals are gaseous, and strength and even solidity itself are to be 
found in only a very few substances. And even these react energetically 
on almost everything they can touch. In the crucible of the iron blast- 
furnace there is but one substance that remains solid which can offer 
support, and that is carbon, but this itself reacts on most things exposed 
to it and is in turn attacked and destroyed by them. This reciprocal de- 
struction, this Kilkenny-cat attitude of nearly every available substance 
toward every other, is not only itself unlike anything the student has 
previously known, but it results in a difficulty previously unthought of, 
the baffling difficulty of devising any retaining vessel whatsoever. The 
solids we children have known stay put ; the liquids rest peacefully in 
the familiar tin can, or in the few cases in which they may not be used, 
then in vessels of wood, glass, porcelain, or clay indiscriminately. 

Indeed, the fiery magmas with which metallurgy has to do, the molten 
metal, the molten slag and molten matte, are in themselves and apart 
from their corrosive nature, substances unlike anything in the notice 
of our early years, which has been directed chiefly to solids and aque- 
ous liquids. The nearest approach to acquaintance is the hazy concep- 
tion of lava streams of which we have read. Still more remote from 
our experience are the reactions between these plutonic bodies which 
play so large a part in metallurgj?^, the purifying action of slag on metal, 
the slag's retentivit)'^ of metal or of metalloid according to whether it be 
acid or basic, the coalescing of the oxides and acids into one magma, 
the slag ; of the sulphides into a second, matte; of unoxidized and un- 
sulphuretted elements, both metals and metalloids into a third magma, 
the metal; and the reciprocal expulsion which each magma exerts toward 
the other. Here, indeed, we have a class of bodies and of reactions so 
unlike those of which the usual chemical laboratory instruction treats, 
that metallurgical laboratory practice should be added to chemical. 

To supply clear conceptions of these strange metallurgical conditions 



28 

and thus to build a foundation for thought and reasoning, is, I believe, 
the chief work, — the invaluable work of the metallurgical laboratory. 

To build this foundation well, the student should, I think, perform a 
great variety of simple experiments, each of which should direct his 
attention to a very few, or even to one important principle and avoid 
diverting it to attendant administrative details. For instance, his fur- 
naces should in general be heated by gas or electric resistance, so that his 
attention may be concentrated on the phenomenon which he is studying, 
and not diverted to keeping a coal fire in proper condition. 

If I am right in saying that the laboratory is thus an invaluable instru- 
ment for preparing the student for the studying of prhiciples, the first of 
the two objections urged against metallurgical laboratories, that education 
should be in principles rather than in practice, falls to the ground. 

The second objection, that the conditions of actual practice cannot be 
reproduced in the laboratory would be unworthy of notice, were it not 
offered by men of such weight that even their errors must be considered. 

The error lies in supposing that this instruction aims to anticipate 
practice in commercial establishments, whereas its aim is to facilitate in- 
struction in metallurgical principles by lectures and text-books. There 
is no more reason for reproducing commercial practice exactly in the 
metallurgical laboratory than for reproducing in the chemical laboratory 
the system of kilns, towers and leaden chambers of the sulphuric acid 
works. But even from this mistaken point of view the objection is 
without weight. With equal force it can be urged that fire drill and 
military drill are useless, because they cannot reproduce exactly the ac- 
tual conflagration, and the actual carnage and confusion of battle. 

Another and important work of the metallurgical laboratory is to give 
a certain skill in the use of instruments of precision of the art, in py- 
rometry, calorimetry and the microscopy of metals and alloys. It seems 
to me nearly as imperative that the metallurgist's diploma to-day should 
imply this skill as that the civil engineer's should imply skill in the 
use of the transit. 

Finally, just as into a barrel full of potatoes a quarter of a barrel of sand 
can be poured, and then a quarter of a barrel of water, so after the 
student's power of study and note-taking in lectures has been thoroughly 
utilized, he still has power for much of this different, this observational 
and administrative laboratory work, in which he absorbs and assimilates 
priceless information like a sponge, and acquires along the path of least 



29 

resistance and with but little mental effort, the needed metallurgical con- 
ceptions. 

At the close of the exercises, a procession was formed under 
the direction of Professor W. B. Owen, who acted as marshal, 
and the company proceeded to the entrance of the new build- 
ing, where the building was formally transferred by Mr. Gayley 
to Dr. Warfield, who, in the absence of Mr. John W. Hollen- 
back, President of the Board of Trustees, received it. 

Mr. Gayi^ey's Addrkss. 

To make complete this building for the use of the college it only re- 
mains for me to formally transfer it to you, as representing the Board of 
Trustees. But, before doing so, I want to take this opportunity to 
acknowledge the great service that has been rendered to me and to the 
college by Prof. Hart, upon whom fell the whole burden of supervising 
the construction. How well he has developed and worked out the scheme 
will soon be appreciated by those who will pursue the courses to be taught 
here. 

I am particularlj^ pleased that the interior construction is on lines 
so severely practical that it becomes a constant object lesson alike to 
the teachers and students in these departments. And from this I argue 
that the instruction in chemistry and metallurgy shall also follow along 
the same practical lines. 

As this is the age of industry, it is my great desire that the instm.c- 
tion given in this building shall so instil the spirit of industrialism, 
that it may cause men with the strongest brains and ambitions to direct 
their energies toward industrial advancement. And I rest content in 
the belief that there shall come from this institution, some men, who 
have profited by the instruction they have received in this building, and 
who shall mark progress in some of our nation's great industries. And 
by this token [the keys] I herewith transfer through you to the college, 
all right and title to this building, to be used as the trustees may deem 
for its best interests. 

After brief remarks by Dr. Warfield, accepting the gift, 
Reverend Samuel A. Gayley, D.D., of the Class of 1847, the 
father of James Gayley, made the dedicatory prayer and 
pronounced the benediction. 



iW/ 



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